[ISN] Terror email ID was created in US: Police

[InfoSec News]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Mumbai/Terror_email_ID_was_created_in_US_Police/articleshow/3584939.cms

By S Ahmed Ali
The Times of India
12 Oct 2008

MUMBAI: The crime branch investigations into the terror module Indian 
Mujahideen (IM) have revealed that one of the suspects in custody, 
software engineer employed with Yahoo!, Asgar Mansoor Peerbhoy had 
created the email ID Guru-al-arbi-al-hindi at yahoo.com in February 2008 
while he was in California, USA, on an official assignment.

Peerbhoy told the police that he wanted to send the terror emails then, 
but fearing that he would be tracked down, he had restrained from doing 
so. The police believe that Peerbhoy was taking instructions from the 
founder of IM, Riyaz Bhatkal and are now trying to find whether there 
was any exchange of emails between Bhatkal and Peerbhoy.

Joint commissioner of police (Crime) Rakesh Maria said, We have seized 
Peerbhoys laptop and the CPU he had been using in his office. We are 
trying to extract the contents from his computers.

Peerbhoys colleague, Mubin Salman Shaikh, a software engineer told the 
police that he had designed several options for the logo of IM. It was 
Bhatkal who finalised the design, said additional commissioner of 
police, Deven Bharti. Peerbhoys other colleague Asif Shaikh drafted all 
the emails. From the scrap entry on Shaikhs computer, it appears that 
Shaikh has obtained the contents of the emails from several websites, 
including www.thehoot.org and had copied the content from there, said 
Maria.

Interestingly, all the three were made to attend training on hacking in 
Hyderabad. The IM had paid Rs 70,000 per head as the fee for the 
three-day course, the police said. A total of eight candidates attended 
the training, which is believed to have been imparted by two foriegners.

Maria said that the trios role was limited only to sending the email and 
they had nothing to do with transporting, planting or blasting bombs. He 
added that as they were aware of the crime beforehand, they have been 
booked for aiding and abetting in the blasts.

While the trio send the first email about the Ahmedabad blast by hacking 
into US citizen Ken Haywoods WiFi connection in Sanpada, the second 
email was sent from outside Khalsa College. The last email was sent from 
Chembur.